This beautiful New England destination wedding comes to us from the very talented Randi Voss. I love Randi and every wedding she sends over seems better than the last. Alison and Paul are originally from Pittsburgh, PA, but opted for a small destination wedding in Maine, followed by a huge hometown reception to celebrate. I kind of love this idea. There’s something really wonderful about having as many people as possible there to celebrate with you, and still enjoying the intimacy of a small ceremony. Love.
Alison said… “After getting engaged on the same day as the closing of our house (and being together for 6 years), we didn’t want to wait too long to actually get married. Waiting until 2010 seemed so far off so we decided we would attempt to plan something for the Fall of 2009 (much to the nervousness of my parents who I think will admit they didn’t think we would be able to pull it off!). As Paul and I began the wedding discussions they started to head towards a destination wedding direction. We liked the idea of doing something different in contrast to the normal hometown wedding ceremony/reception all in one day or even a ‘normal’ destination wedding in a warm, sunny, beachfront location.”
I’m a big fan of this wedding and the double party. Seriously Who wouldn’t want to go round two in their wedding dress? I also love, love, love, the details of this wedding. From Alison’s “pretty in pink shoes” to the meaningful pennies and monogrammed mason jars. Too cute.
Plus this super bride managed to move into a brand new house, get engaged, plan a destination wedding AND a hometown party in 7 months! That’s pretty amazing.
We’ll have more from Alison and Paul when their hometown soiree kicks off, but for now, enjoy these amazing images from their September ceremony in New England.
From the bride… As funny as it sounds, the ideas for our two main colors – sage green and chocolate brown, came from kitchen dish towels that we had bought for our new house. As soon as I saw the color combination together, the color choice was made. We thought the colors would be perfect alongside the outdoor setting of the B&B in addition to the fall time of year. A little time later, as we started to really plan out the flowers, we brought in accents of pink for a pop of color and pulled in a bit of ivory as well.
From the bride… My favorite moment of the day and of which Randi captured so beautifully was Paul’s and my ‘first look’ before the ceremony. We had seen each other earlier in the day, but separated for most of the day as the girls got ‘beautified’ with hair and makeup and as the guys lent their skills in setting up the tented-reception. By the time we were all ready I was so excited to see Paul and to spend a few alone minutes with him just taking in everything together. I was not emotional at all before or after that moment but as soon as I saw Paul, I couldn’t stop the tears, happy tears of course. Paul quickly was able to calm me down (which he does so well) and we were ready to get started!
From the bride… The task of planning a destination wedding was a little daunting since we were not at all familiar with the vendors available in that area. However, with the help of Paul’s relatives, who own the Inn where we got married, this worry soon went away as they provided great recommendations in all areas such as catering, flowers, cake, etc. Believe it or not, we never even had a cake tasting for our wedding cake! The vendors were extremely open to working with us through emails and phone calls, although we did make one pre-wedding trip to Maine in July to finalize a few things and of course to get our all-important marriage certificate!
From the beautiful bride… As soon as I became officially engaged, the obsession with all of the wedding internet sites, blogs, message boards, etc. began as well. The images that I was drawn too included the rustic, garden-style, outdoor weddings that paid great attention to details which were carried throughout the ceremony and reception. Our choice of the Peace With-Inn provided the ultimate back-drop for this “look”.
From the bride… Understanding that only a subset of our family and friends would be able to join us in Maine, we also wanted to have a reception for our larger group of friends and family back in Pittsburgh after we returned from our wedding ceremony in Maine. On one hand, Paul and I wanted an intimate, relaxed style to our actual wedding ceremony, but we also are two people that don’t shy away from big celebrations either so another reception was an order!
From Alison… After going through 10-20 invitation books, I was drawn to the casual/modern look of the lower case letter-style and after selecting the invitation, was set on carrying the monogram and lettering style throughout our Maine wedding and Pittsburgh reception. For our wedding in Maine, I was able to bring this detail into our invitations, ceremony programs, aisle runner, out-of-town guest bag tags and cookies, beverage napkins, mason jar tags, etc.
From Alison… Now here is when I could go into comments about how the day went so fast and that before I knew it, the wedding was over and there wasn’t anything more to look forward to wedding-wise, but this is where the perks of having a ‘back-home’ reception come into play…yes, our wedding ceremony was over and we were officially married but we still had a big party to look forward to in only a month! So instead of the wedding celebration being over within a day, we had an excuse to keep the celebration going through our reception in October! For our October reception, Paul and I are really looking forward to spending the time with the family and friends that were unable to spend the time with us in Maine. Stay tuned for my updates after our October reception!
